The Tycoon's Forbidden Temptation

‘Slade…’

His finger touched her lips and she was surprised to feel how much it trembled.

‘Don’t say anything,’ he urged her. ‘I know you’re sexually attracted to me, Chelsea, and from that I hope that a love will grow to match mine for you, but even if it doesn’t I believe we have a chance together, a… What’s the matter?’ he demanded, as she suddenly stiffened and stared at him.

‘You love me?’

He frowned. ‘Oh, come on, Chelsea, no games, haven’t I just spent the last fifteen minutes…’ He broke off and stared at her. ‘What the hell did you think I meant?’

‘I thought you were talking about my love for you being enough for both of us,’ she said softly. ‘I thought you’d guessed… that you knew.’

‘You love me?’

She could feel him tremble against her and felt a tiny surge of power.

‘Very much,’ she admitted simply. ‘So much! Slade…’

She reached blindly for him, torn between laughter and tears when he took her mouth hungrily, possessing it with an urgency that sent her blood singing wildly through her veins.

‘Thank God for Kirsty,’ he said unevenly when he at last released her. ‘If it hadn’t been for her we could have gone on for ever, neither of us realising… I nearly went mad that night you were lost in the snow,’ he said abruptly. ‘A saint couldn’t have resisted,’ he added huskily. I knew half of what you were doing was only induced by the brandy, and that’s what stopped me in the end. I wanted you to love me, not just desire me, which infuriated me even further. Afterwards, I told myself that if I could turn the clock back to when we first met… but even that didn’t work, and exorcise you as I’d hoped. All it did was make me want you more than ever. Chelsea…’

* * *

At the end of January Slade and Chelsea returned from their honeymoon in the Caribbean. Typically, Slade had been in no mind to wait once he knew she loved him. They had been married very quietly in Melchester, a mere ten days after Kirsty’s visit. Ann had been at first embarrassed and then enchanted when she discovered who her new brother-in-law was to be.

Chelsea had stayed with her sister and Ralph until her marriage, at Slade’s insistence. She had been a little chagrined and hurt, but on the first morning of their marriage, as they lay in bed together, Chelsea held possessively within Slade’s arms as they listened to the sea pounding on the beach just outside the window of their villa, Slade had explained that he had deliberately kept some distance between them until they were married.

‘Knowing it would be the first time for you, I wanted to make it as perfect as possible,’ he murmured against her throat, ‘and if you’d continued to live at Darkwater, I couldn’t have trusted myself to wait.’

There had been a lump in Chelsea’s throat. He had made it perfect for her; by his patience and skill as much as the romantic surroundings he had chosen, tenderly fuelling her desire until the brief pain his possession brought was soon forgotten in the ecstasy that followed.

Now they were back at Darkwater and the old house was almost ready for opening to the public. Mrs Rudge had been dismissed and a girl from the village came in to help with the housework. Chelsea preferred it that way because it meant that they could spend their evenings completely alone.

‘Looks good, doesn’t it?’ Slade commented, as they both studied the tapestry, which was now mounted under glass in the long gallery.

‘Fantastic,’ Chelsea agreed, her, eyes drawn to the golden-haired girl she had so carefully worked on, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

‘All right,’ Slade grinned, reading her mind, ‘so I was wrong about her.’

‘I knew all along that she really loved him,’ Chelsea said smugly. ‘Feminine intuition!’

She had been thrilled and delighted the day Slade came home to tell her that from some documents the Trust had discovered in the house it was apparent Damask had loved her Crusader and that apparently he had been deceived by his brother, just as Chelsea had imagined, that same brother confessing his crime to his priest on his deathbed.

With Slade’s arm around her waist, Chelsea leaned blissfully against him. She could still hardly believe that they were married, that he loved her; although… Another smile tugged at her lips and Slade smiled down at her,

‘How’s your intuition working now, Mrs Ashford?’ he murmured softly. ‘If it doesn’t tell you that your husband is extremely anxious to make love to you then it’s badly at fault.’

Her laughter was silenced beneath his mouth. Her arms crept up round his, her fingers tightening in his hair as the pressure of his mouth deepened. Momentarily she felt a haunting sadness for Damask, but then Slade claimed all her attention, and she responded eagerly to the slow seduction of his kiss and the pleasure she knew would follow.

* * * * *

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USA TODAY bestselling author

CAROLE MORTIMER,